Virtual OS/2 International Consumer Education

February 1999

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"They Just Don't Get It"


By: Tom Nadeau os2headquarters@mindspring.com

I'm tired of hearing people say that IBM "just doesn't get it." IBM is far from perfect, but one thing they *do* get is the importance of migrating away from proprietary software.

No, I'm not talking about moving away from OS/2. I'm not even talking about giving up my favorite OS/2 applications. I'm talking about software developers who seem to need a size 17 cluebat upside the head. Let me give you a recent example.

Last week I nearly sold two or three customers on OS/2 upgrades. The only obstacle for them was the need to run a handful of Windows-only applications. Now what did this mean? It meant that PC users who wanted to upgrade to a stable, Y2K-ready platform were stuck with a brain-dead kludge operating system from Redmond instead. But it also meant that some people in software development in several major industries just don't get it. One medical doctor needs to use several CD-ROMs to do research on various parts of the human body, various medications, and various illnesses and their symptoms and treatments. This is not rocket science; these applications are nothing more that passive collections of information with perhaps a search engine built-in.

So why were they Windows-only? Some of these medical CDs were Mac-only. Why the fixation with a single platform? The solution to the software dilemma is really quite simple: all such encyclopedic collections of information should be built in strictly web-page format using standard HTML and .GIF files. Everybody can get access to a web browser on any platform, and the resultant CDs would be platform-independent, bringing in a greater number of customers without having to duplicate development efforts.

But not only would the CDs be platform-neutral, but there would be a tremendous additional benefit in reduced development costs. If collections of data can be assembled into a CD-ROM using webpage format, then there would no longer be any need for expensive Windows-only development tools, bounds checkers, C++ debuggers, and the high-priced personnel to use these kludges. Instead, a handful of webpage designers could crank out CD after CD with higher reliability and much lower development time. The ROI would be fabulous, combining faster release times, lower development costs, lower debugging time, reduced tech support costs, and a broader range of compatible customers -- in other words, an absolute win-win situation for developer and customer alike.

The fact that so few medical, industrial, and educational reference CD-ROMs are built on a platform-neutral, open-standards design implies that there are a whole lot of corporate decision-makers out there who just don't get it. And I'm not just talking about people in Armonk or Austin.
--

Tom Nadeau
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